Cityscape: The Capital Infrastructuring and Technologization of Manila

Lifetimes of Disposability and Surplus Entrepreneurs in Bagong Barrio, Manila

“…Against this, we also heard about the inventiveness of residents: the creation of a community cooperative savings and loan society, and more individual strategies of survival and job creation, such as inserting oneself into the labour and housing markets as a sangla tira agent or providing the service of driving children to school in a side‐car for a small fee. There is nothing new about noting the self‐reliance of squatter and informal communities but in a context in which these communities are “demonized and positioned as the city's ‘abject’” in popular discourse (Tolentino :167), such that demolition of their community and displacement is rendered unremarkable and perhaps even virtuous, representations of hard work, resourcefulness, saving and self‐discipline do important political work. We also heard stories of continuing, ongoing commitments to collective struggle and family life, that is, of a good deal of labour and life that exists and thrives between the individual and the population.…”

“…Precarity in Bagong Barrio is produced within the specifics of Philippine history: a history of Spanish and American colonialism, integration within the global capitalist economy through partnerships with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, an export‐oriented industrial development strategy that has subjected the population to the effects of various structural adjustment policies (Bello et al ; Raphael 2000; San Juan , ; Tadiar ), and a home‐grown version of crony capitalism, or what Paul Hutchcroft () describes as booty capitalism. This history has been shadowed by a vigorous urban restructuring program for Manila during the Marcos era (the City of Man), accompanied by substantial urban dispossession: namely, the removal, containment, concealment and relocation of squatters (Benedicto ; Garrido ; Pinches ; Tadiar ; Tolentino ). Rather than waste to which the state is indifferent, in the Philippines, through a labour export program that dates from 1974, segments of this “disposable” population have served as valuable assets, who sustain their families and the post‐colonial state through their remittances.…”

Queer Love and Urban Intimacies in Martial Law Manila

“…Before being submitted to the Berlin Film Festival, Imelda Marcos demanded that the film be censored and "cleaned" of its controversial content. As Roland Tolentino (2001) recalls, the first lady asked that "all footage showing the dying city or any direct mention of Manila be deleted" (p. 166). The city's "dying" property was correspondent with the presence of poverty, crime, prostitution, homosexuality and other "vices."…”

“…Manila was also expanded to include outlying townships through a "networking" of smaller towns into the larger Metropolitan Manila. Tolentino (2001) explains that "the preparation of the city by the Marcos regime required the development of a national transport infrastructure-to speak metaphorically, a network of developmental grids which might foster the flow and mobility of capital through the nation" (p. 160). Ironically, this gridding was constantly met with failure.…”

“…This made planning for an architectural systematizing of capital flows highly difficult. In terms of its populace, the quotidian resistance of squatters and other unhinged nomads-individuals who refused to end their viral proliferation-made every effort to "clean" the city of both human and nonhuman waste impossible (Tolentino, 2001). Imelda's projects to make Manila "beautiful" have had to rely on purely cosmetic change, such as covering over squatter areas by creating large white walls, rather than their continual demolition.…”